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Campaign Document, No. 10. i 



ADDRESS OF 



HON. GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS 



AT PHILADELPHIA, SEPT. 30, 1864. 



Gentlemen op Philadelphia; — 

Some of you have done me the great 
honor to invite me to deliver an ad- 
dress here on the present state of the 
country, and the issues involved in the 
approaching presidential election. The 
nomination of General McClellan to 
the presidency by the Democratic par- 
ty, 'affords to me an ample reason for 
complying witli your invitation. For 
many long and weary months it has 
been my constant hope that the Amer- 
ican people vi^ould come at length to 
appreciate and sympathize with his 
character, and would perceive how his 
public principles are identified with 
the welfare of the country and the 
safety of its institutions. There is a 
reasonable prospect that such a condi- 
tion of the public mind respecting this 
distinguished man will be reached ; 
reached in spite of malignant detrac- 
tion, in spite of official oppression and 
persecution, without the slightest sac- 
rifice of his personal dignity, without 
a shadow of change on his part, and 
through the simple power of a true 
and upright character to vindicate it- 
self. My estimate of him is not, so 



far as I can perceive, the mere result 
of personal regard, or of narrow hab- 
its of observation. Having known 
and lived with persons of marked 
cliaracter all my life, I do not see any 
sufficient reason for mistrusting my 
own judgment in this particular in- 
stance, and I do not imagine that any- 
body can suggest any good reason why 
I should not publicly express it. 

It is now eighteen years, or more, 
since I first met General McClellan, 
for a single evening, in a domestic cir- 
cle in New England, where he had 
come to attend the marriage of one of 
his kindred. He was then a young 
lieutenant in the army, recently gradu- 
ated from West Point; alert, full of 
intelligence, and impressing all whom 
he met by a remarkable combination 
of spirit and modesty. But from that 
time I had not particularly observed 
him, until my attention was suddenly 
arrested by a very striking opinion and 
prediction concerning him, uttered by 
a veteran officer of the army, of high 
rank and great experience, wlio has 
been long retired, but wlio had fol- 
lowed the career of McClellan, as he 



Wobo^ol' 



r'^s''^ 



has the careers of all the men wlio 
have been educated at West Point lor 
tlie last forty years, with the ch)sest ob- 
servation. This gentleman, whose au- 
thority iu all niihtary alfairs stands very 
high, was asked by a friend, in the 
summer of 18G1, at the time when it 
began to bo rumored that General 
_8cott, from his increasing bodily infirm- 
ity, might l>e obliged to retin;, who 
there was that wouhl be fit to take 
General K^cott'.s place ? He answered 
immediately,*' General McClellan, who 
is now (igliting his way through West- 
ern Virginia. If he is put at the head 
of the army, the government and the ' 
country will be safe." I 

Fi-om that period until General Mc- ' 
Clellan was removed from all active 
service, for no assignable or creditable 
reason, 1 followed his course with the 
strongest interest, and when he came 
to the city of New York to reside, in 
the early part of tiie winter of 1862-8, 
I sought to renew our acquaintance' 
and have since been lionored by his 
friendship. The opinions, therefore, 
which I have formed concerning him,' 
are not; founded solely uj)on observa- 
tion of his public acts or writings ; al- 
though there is but little need t^o 'put I 
forward the judgments of private inter- i 
couse. General McClelian's qualities i 
as a man and a statesman stand l)efore 
tJie world upon tests which all intelli- ' 
geut persons can apply. His accom- 
plishmonts as a soldier are by no means 
the limit of liis powers. A l)road 
capacious, and cultivated intellect' 
well instructed in the principles and 
nstory of our institutions; a great 
la.;ulty (or calm and wise thinkiu'r ; a 
solid judgment; a power of sell^^on- 
trol that has been tried by greater and 
worse provocations than even Wash- 
ington was sul)jected to, and that has 
l>rov.Ml as strong as Washington's • a 
sagacity in perceiving the cliaracters 
of mm, which will insure him, I con- 
lidently predict, from unworthy influ- 
ences, .strong religious principle^ entire 
purity (.1 l.fo, and fervent patriotism — 
tlinse are some of the charactei-istics of 
a man who, still under the age of forty 



I has a wider personal popularity than 
I any other living American. How 
I strange it would be now, that a great 
: party has named such a man for the 
I highest office in the land, and has as- 
sumed his public principles as its pol- 
icy, if he were not to be the choice of a 
majority of the people ! How strange 
it is, that such a man should be the 
sul)ject of gross misrepresentation and 
misconception ! One hears, occasion- 
ally, from persons otherwise intelligent, 
an amount of prejudice concerning 
General McClellan, and a degree of 
credulity equal to the reception of the 
most monstrous fabrications, that are so 
astonishing that one is tempted to ask 
how such persons can have acquired 
such impressions or what their modes 
of forming their opinions can be. But 
the mfluence of party over the mind 
is too old a thing to need elucidation, 
and the arts by which the unscrupu- 
lous make use of that influence have 
I not been invented for this particular 
era. It will be a good proof of our 
mtelligence and virtue, as a people, if 
we shall now break that influence and 
defeat those art,s. 
I Notwitiistanding my great personal 
regard for General McClellan, I cer- 
tainly would jiot vote for him, or ur.--e 
others to do so, if I believed that the?e 
was the slightest danger of his proving, 
in the ofhce of President, to be an?' 
thu.g but the firm and independent 
man that I conceive him to be Li 
my opmion, there is no ground what- 
ever for any apprehension on this 
^ point. I do not indeed think that his 
iiidepend3nce is of that quality that 
w.l lead hnn to disregard the comisels 
ot the wise and the good; but I firmly 
beheve that It IS of a quahty that will 
prevent the counsels of those who are 
not wise and good from ever approach- 
ng Iiun. If any man labors ti bring 
about Gen. McClelian's election in thf 
o.Kpectation that he can thereby accom- 
phsh any se fish perso.ial scheme, or 
ai.y public plan or project that is not 
as comprehensive as the Union, and as 
honoficcnt as the Constitution ilself, L 
my judgment he will make a great mis- 



l-Ki 



take. If any man shall refrain from 
votinji; for him in tlic belief tliat his 
administration will be influenced by 
any person or persons in whom the 
peo})le of this country ought not to 
conlide, such a man will also, I believe, 
greatly err. 

1 know how difficult it has been 
made for the American people to 
believe in public virtue. Private or 
personal virtue we can believe in. 
But our politics have been so degra- 
ded by tricks of deception, our politi- 
cians have so often compelled the peo- 
ple to distrust them, — that when a 
man, placed suddenly in a conspicu- 
ous and responsible position as a can- 
didate for our suffrages, is called upon 
to declare his principles, one of our 
first impulses is to regard what he 
says, as a suare for our votes. This 
is a miserable habit, but it is not with- 
out its causes. All I can do to coun- 
teract it in this instance is, to tell 
you frankly what I think •about Gen- 
eral McClellan's letter accepting the 
nomination, and about the man who 
wrote it. 

Be good enough, then, to remember 
one thing, that General McClellan, 
while he lias the perceptions, qualities, 
and knowledge of a statesman, is not 
a politician. He has never been ac- 
customed to practice the arts by 
which elections are carried, and I do 
not believe that he ever wrote a line 
in his life for mere political effect, or 
one that did not express his honest 
convictions. His letter accepting the 
nomination was written to give to the 
people of this country liis ideas of the 
principles on which a national admin- 
istration ought, iii this crisis, to be 
constituted ; and to state the princi- 
les on which it must be constituted 
by him, if he is to be the next Presi- 
dent. That he will be likely, under 
any " pressure," to pursue any other 
course, or that he will ever be found to 
have said one thing and to do another, 
I have no shadow of apprehension. 

Of course it was impossible for him 
to do anything more than to lay down 
the general principles that must guide 



him, if he is»placed in the high office 
to which he has been named. But if 
you will take that letter and examine 
it carefully and without prejudice, you 
will find that it states the only policy 
by which there can be any hope for a 
reunion of the whole people of this 
country under one flag and one gov- 
ernment, —the flag and the govern- 
ment of the United States. It is very 
easy for this man or that to find a par- 
ticular fault, or to pick a particular 
flaw in it ; but if any man will take 
his pen in his hand and sit down to 
state a course of policy that can give 
peace to this country, and at the same 
time reestablish its government over 
the whole of its territory, he will find 
that if he varies essentially what is 
contained in that letter, he will have 
introduced or omitted something, the 
introduction or omission of which an 
enlightened and sound judgment must 
pronounce to be, in all human proba- 
bility, absolutely fatal to any prospect 
of success. So at least, it has ap- 
peared to me. Knowing as I did, that 
when the nomination came, the an- 
swer to it would emanate directly 
from the mind of a man who had 
calmly surveyed the whole field of our 
national troubles, who has now been 
for some time removed from the im- 
mediate turmoil of public affairs, who 
has kept himself aloof from political 
entanglements, who has neither asked 
or desired political preferment, and 
who has at the same time watched 
from day to day and with a careful 
eye the military and tlie political as- 
pects of this great civil war, I was 
prepared for a wise and well consid- 
ered response. I was not disappoint- 
ed. To mo, under all the circum- 
stances of the nomination, consider- 
ing the various and conflicting views 
which our opponents attributed to the 
several parts of the great party which 
nominated him, — the firmness, the 
candor, and the precision of his an- 
swer stand as the surest guarantees of 
his own future course, and of that of 
the party whose leader he has become. 
If the American people cannot so re- 



gard it, I know not wlicre, or how we 
are to find the qualities tiiat shall 
" give the world assurance of a Man." 

It is a remarkable evidence of Gen- 
eral McClcUan's intellectual powers, 
that he not only perceived, at the very 
first, the inai^nitude and character of 
the military struggle that was about to 
take place between the two great sec- 
tions of this country, but that he com- 
l)reiiended the civil relations of the fed- 
oral government to the people of the 
revolted States more accurately, and 
with a wider grasp, than most of our 
statesmen. That his views were so 
correct and so extensive, must be re- 
garded, when we consider his age, as 
quite extraordinary. At the begin- 
ning of tlie war he was just five and 
thirty. Where else was there a man 
of that age in the United States whose 
opinions, respecting the character and 
relations of this great civil dissension, 
which had sundered an empire, would 
bear to bo tested by the true theory of 
the institutions of the country ? Be- 
tween the opinion that there could be 
no coercion of the people of a revolted 
or seceded State, and the opinion that 
the federal government could throw 
off all the restraints of the Constitu- 
tion and ])rocoed to subjugation, there 
was certainly a middle ground of rea- 
son and of law. That ground General 
McClellau occupied from the first. 
Before the two houses of Congress had 
declared that ground in the resolution 
which the Republican Administration 
and its party afterwards so signally 
and fatally deserted, he applied it 
in all his military conduct in West- 
ern Virginia; and after he arrived in 
Washington, in August, 1861, and 
proceeded to form the Army of the 
I*otomac, and to lay out a great cam- 
piigu, the very first paper whicli he 
sulnniited to his official superiors, and 
all his orders and instructions to his 
subordinates, show what his concep- 
tion was of the only lawful and consti- 
tutional theory on which the war could 
be waged l)y the government of the 
United States. 

His view appears to have beeu this. 



The government of the United States 
is a government of direct and sovereigu 
powers, granted to it by solemn cession 
of the people of each State. It has 
therefore a right to put down all mili- 
tary or other forcible resistance to the 
exercise of its constitutional powers in 
any State. But it can have no right to 
acquire by force powers which have nev- 
er been conferred upon it by the Consti- 
tution, and which cannot be exercised 
under the Constitution ; and it can 
therefore never treat a State, or the 
people of a State, as if they had forfeit- 
ed their right of self- government in 
those matters to which the Constitu- 
tion of the United States does not ex- 
tend. Taking this just and accurate 
view, he appears to have entertained 
the hope that after the Southern armies 
had been defeated, the people of the 
seceded States would find it most ex- 
pedient to abandon their plan of a sep- 
arate government and resume their 
constitutional obligations. But in or- 
der to aid this tendency, if such a ten- 
dency could be developed in the South, 
he saw very clearly that ahumane, civ- 
ilized, and just policy toward the peo- 
ple of those States was absolutely es- 
sential to success ; and having been 
educated in the high principles with 
which modern civilization surrounds 
the exercise of war by Christian nations, 
and recognizing the fact that this con- 
test had taken the proportions of a 
great war, he strove, in all that he did 
and all that he inculcated, to impress 
such a policy upon all its operations. 
Nay more, he strove to impress that 
policy upon the action of the govern- 
ment. It is all embodied, as you 
know very well, in the celebrated btter 
which he addressed to President Lin- 
coln from Harrison's Bar, 

When Mr. Lincoln received that let- 
ter he had in General McClellan an en- 
tirely disinterested and patriotic advis- 
er. When the President made up his 
mind not to pursue such a policy as 
General McClellan recommended, but 
on the contrary to pursue a directly op- 
posite course, forced upon him by what 
he liimself described as the "pressure" 



of a faction of his own party, he not 
only surrendered to the judgment of 
his contemporaries and of history the 
wisdom of his act, but by liis subse- 
quent conduct toward General McClel- 
lan he surrendered to the judgment 
of mankind his own character for mag- 
nanimity and justice. Whatever might 
be his opinion, or the opinion of others, 
respecting General McClellan's views 
on tlie conduct of the war, he knew that 
General McClellan had served him as 
the head of the government, and had 
served the country witli perfect fidelity 
and honor, and that both President and 
people owed to tliat general a large 
debt of gratitude. Yet he has permit- 
ted General McClellan to be p,ursued 
by his partizans with an almost unpar- 
alleled malignity, when he might at 
any time have stopped the current of 
detraction. Tlie power which a Presi- 
dent of the United States can exercise 
over his party organs, and that portion 
of his followers wlio are most prone to 
attack the character of others by un- 
scrupulous defamation, is as great as 
the power of any monarch over his 
courtiers ; and when that power is not 
used to restrain and rebuke such defa- 
mation in the case of a man eminent- 
ly conspicuous and important to the 
country, it is a just and proper infer- 
ence that the power has not been exer- 
cised because he who holds it is willing 
that the injury should be done. Be 
the verdict of posterity, therefore, what 
it may, respecting the wisdom of Mr. 
Lincoln's rejection of General McClel- 
lan's policy, and his removal from com- 
niand, it will be held hereafter as it 
must now be held by all unprejudiced 
minds that, as an impartial ruler and 
as as a just man, Mr. Lincoln owed it 
to the country, to himself, and to the 
general who had so faithfully and truly 
served both, to protect that generaFs 
reputation from attacks which he knew 
to be malicious, and from imputations 
which he knew to be unfounded. This 
duty he has entirely failed to perform. 
Yet it was a duty plainly incumbent 
upon him, both as a man and as the ex- 
ecutive head of this nation. 



But I did not come here to discuss 
the personal relations of the two men 
who are now the representatives of two 
opposite parties, and on the election of 
one or the other of whom the weal or 
the woe of our country is, as I believe, to 
depend. I wish to state the issues, and 
to state them fairly, in an appeal to 
your reason and intelligence ; and I 
wish if possible to clear those issues of 
all irrelevant matter. Li this effort, my, 
first duty is, to state the Democratic 
policy, as represented by the candidacy 
in which General McClellan stands be- 
fore the country, according to my con- 
ception of his position. Of course, I 
look for that position where the coun- 
try looks for it, in General McClel- 
lan's letter accepting the nomination. 

I beg you not to think that it was mere- 
ly out of regard to his own consisten- 
cy that General McClellan made the an- 
swer which he did make to the Chicago 
nomination. Consistency is a very im- 
portant thing to a man who has a great 
reputation at stake, and whose useful- 
ness depends upon the preservation of 
the public respect for his steadiness of 
character and purpose. But there are 
duties incumbent upon a patriot which 
are at least as great as the duty of per- 
sonal consistency, and one of those du- 
ties in addition to the duty of being 
consistent. General McClellan has per- 
formed most nobly on this occasion, 
and to my entire satisfaction as I hope 
it will prove to yours also. 

All will agree, who are not ready to 
court vast public dangers, that the 
preservation of the Constitution of the 
United States is, or should be, the ob- 
ject of all our efforts. To me it ap- 
pears very clearly that for both sections 
of the Union, for the South as well as 
for the North, the Constitution affords 
the only means by which we of the 
North can restore the Union, or by 
which they of the South can reenter it. 

It cannot be doubted that the Constitu- 
tion is in the greatest possible peril. On 
the one hand, it has been so wrenched 
out of its appropriate working and its' 
true meanings by those who have for four 
years been charged with its adminis- 



tration, that great number? of men have 
been made to feci that instead of being 
the best it is the worst government on 
earth. On the other hand, there are 
those who, despairing of the attainment 
of peace \iiider the forms of tlie Consti- 
txition, which tlicy have seen perverted 
as they bcHeve, into the means of pro- 
longing the war, and promoting disun- 
ion have turned their thoughts toother 
.methods, and have forecast in various 
modes of reconstruction, some new 
arraiigomcnt of our national existence, 
that would imply a new national gov- 
ernment. Sectional ideas and inter- 
ests, other than those which mark the 
distinctions between North and Soutli, 
begin to intrude themselves among 
these discontents. Men in the West 
speculate upon its rehitions with the 
East and with the centre. Men in the 
central States look upon both sides of 
them, and are reflecting on tlie relative 
strength and importance of the ties 
which go eastward and westward. 
All are uneasy and anxious about 
the particular relation of their own 
or of some other section to the cau- 
ses and di(Tcr(Mices which produced, or 
which still keep open, this great schism 
that has separated the South from 
the rest of the Union. Meanwhile, 
the burden of taxation is settling 
down upon the whole people with a 
terrible weight, and men begin to real- 
ize the magnitude of a public debt 
which they fear is already beyond the 
just resources of the country to pay, for 
which they can see no limitation ahead, 
and which is expressed in a fluctuating 
currency — the most demoralizing of 
all the hnancial conditions into which a 
nation can l)e thrown. 

Every rellecting person will admit, 
then, that here is a state of things which 
imposes upon any man who has a part 
to play in j)ublicafliiirsa very stringent 
duty — the duty of dofiinding and pre- 
serving that Constitution, which not 
only forms the existing bond that now 
holds us tog(*ther as a poojile, but which 
affords the only possible means by 
which we can reach any improvements 
in oursystem without revolution and its 



attendant risk? of anarchy, as it is, in 
my judgment, the only means by which 
we can win back to the national fold 
the members who have gone astray 
from it. 

These considerations, then, will be 
allowed by all reasonable men, as fur- 
nishing a sufficient ground for insisting 
that the just authority of the federal 
government shall be preserved, and 
that whatever modifications are hereaf^ 
ter to be made in our national system, 
they must be made according to the 
forms and method which the Constitu- 
tion prescribes. I hold this to be a prin- 
ciple absolutely essential to the safety 
of our American institutions. I have 
lived through one scene of revolution, 
enacted, to be sure, on a small scale,and 
in a community in which I was interest- 
ed only as a near neighbor, in which it 
was attempted to makeTi new govern- 
ment by substitution, without resorting 
to the sanction and consent of the exist- 
ing government to the proposal of a 
change ; and I never wish to see a rep- 
etition of that process. I allude, of 
course, to the case of Rhode Island and 
its civil war. I have, indeed, read elab- 
orate discussions, in which a process 
of making a new Union outside of the 
methods of amendment, provided for by 
the Constitution, have been worked out 
on paper ; but I have never seen one 
which was not marked by a fatal hiatus 
— that did not leave open a door 
through which anarchy would be almost 
certain to enter ; or one that did not 
necessarily admit itself to be a revolu- 
tion. 

There is, therefore, in my opinion, a 
very important principle, as well as 
sound policy, involved in the position 
taken by General McClellan. That po- 
sition is that the Southern States shall 
return to the Union ; and that if they 
do so we will receive them and guaran- 
tee to them all the rights which the Con- 
stitution has ever secured to them. Is 
there anything unreasonable in this re- 
quirement, anything which will be like- 
ly to cause the peoi)le of the Soutii to 
reject it when it shall l)e proposed to 
them by a great popular vote of the 



Nortli which shall remove the present 
administration from office ? Let us see. 

Tiie people of the South must see, as 
well as we do, that when a popular gov- 
ernment like that of the United States 
has been in operation for nearly eiglity 
years, resting upon certain principles 
which have made a powerful nation out 
of a feoljle confederacy, while it has a 
perfectly well-defined method of meet- 
ing all requirements of change, cannot 
be set aside with safety, for the purpose 
of making another system by mere sub- 
stitytion. The}'', as well as we, require 
for national safety a principle that is 
able to make a vigorous nationality 
strong enougii to cope with any exter- 
nal enemy that the world can present 
to us ; but we cannot preserve the pow- 
er and attitude of a great nation, if we 
are to set aside that principle, and go 
into the formation of a new confederacy 
by agreement of the two sectional parts 
of that nation. The hazards are too 
great, and the people of both sections 
ought to see that it is neither necessary 
nor wise to incur those hazards. The 
Constitution we can amend, in its order- 
ly and regular method, if it requires 
amendment, but we cannot set aside 
the principle of union which makes us 
a jiation, and which is as essential to 
their welfare and safety as it is to ours. 

These truths I expect to see the peo- 
ple of the South recognize, if we can 
furnish them with the evidence that we 
require nothing more of them than their 
return to the Union. The Democratic 
party, speaking through General Mc- 
Clellan, has done all that it can do, at 
present, to give this assurance. If the 
people of the North will sanction this 
policy by their votes, and the people of 
the South really desire peace and reun- 
ion, this long and bloody civil war can 
be brought to an honorable and suc- 
cessful termination. It is plain, how- 
ever, that one of the first things to be 
done hereafter will be to ascertain if 
the people of the South desire to return 
to the Union, and to promote as well 
as we can, without compromising the 
authority of the Federal Government, 
any existing wishes of that kind. 



The great misfortune of the case 
and what creates the chief difficulty, 
arises from the character and conduct 
of Mr. Lincoln's administration. It 
is an administration which does not 
appear to have had any course of ac- 
tion that could be dignified with the 
name of a policy. It has lived from 
hand to mouth on a series of expedi- 
ents. No one connected with it has 
been able to hold out to the South a 
steady, consistent system based on a 
correct constitutional theory of the 
war, and leading to a simple and defi- 
nite constitutional end. This is the 
reason why multitudes of men in the 
North have not been able to support 
Mr. Lincoln's prosecution of the war, 
and why there has been no Union par- 
ty in the South. Measures lying 
wholly outside of the • Constitution, 
or at least lying wholly witiiin very 
debatable ground, have been resorted- 
to i)i terrorem for the purpose of being 
used as auxiliary to the exercise of 
military force — such as the sweeping 
edicts of confiscation and emancipa- 
tion, and the plans of the President 
for making constructive States within 
the domains of the States now claim- 
ing to be seceded from the Union. 
The consequence of all this has been 
to convince the people of the South 
that the triumph of the military pow- 
er of the United States involves the 
loss of all their property, and the de- 
struction of that principle of our sys- 
tem which makes every State the un- 
controlled regulator of its domestic 
institutions. So much for the past. , 
A new drama now opens. 

Mr. Lincoln is a candidate for reelec- 
tion ; and we have under his own 
hand, since he became a candidate for 
reelection, a direct, authentic, and 
perfectly plain declaration of the con- 
ditions on which he will consent to 
receive the people of the South back 
into the Union. It is in these words : 

Executive Mansion, j 
Washington July 18, is()4. j 

To lohom it may concern : — 

Any proposition which embraces the resto- 
ration of peace, the integrity of the whola 
Union, and the abandonment of slavery^^ and ; 



8 



tchich cnme.< by and with an authority that can 
cnnfrol fftn nrmie.'f now at war against the United 
Slat PS, will /x? rereirfd and considered hy the 
Jixtcudve Government of the United States, 
ami will be met by libi-ral Utdls on other sub- 
stantial and collateral jiolnts, and the bearer 
or bearers thereof shall have safe conduct 
both ways. Auraiiam Lincoln. 

I liavo no right to impute to Mr. 
Lincoln purposes which he luis not ex- 
j^i-c.'-sed, or reservations which he has 
not made. I liavc seen a great many in- 
genious exphiuations written hy his po- 
litical friends, to show how the President 
did not say that he would not receive and 
act upon other propositions which he 
did not mention. But I think if I 
were to read that paper to a jury of 
twelve intelligent men, who knew the 
subject to which it relates, and were to 
ask them to infer from it that Mr. Lin- 
coln did not mean to make the aban- 
donment of slavery one of three con- 
ditions on which he is willing to have 
a restoration of the Union, I should 
provoke a very significant smile. As 
jJainly as the English language can 
speak, he couples together " the resto- 
ration of peace," " the integrity of the 
whole Union," and " the abandonment 
of slavery," as the three things which 
must be presented to him in one proj)- 
osition, by the power that now controls 
the Southern armies. A proposition, 
lie says, embracing these three things, 
will be met by the executive govern- 
ment of the United States — hoio ? 
l>y liberal terms on those three points ? 
Not at all ; they will be met by liberal 
terms on ^^ other sultstantiul and col- 
fdtrraf points." The language is care- 
fully framed to exclude the idea that 
Miere can be any more liberality about 
the point of slavery than about the 
restoration of peace and the integrity 
of Dm- Union. The one is as much a 
fixed purpose with Mr. Lincoln as the 
tw(^ others. He kjiows that both sec- 
tions of the country have so under- 
stood him, and to this day ho has 
never uttered a word to correct that 
impression. We arc bound to believe 
that lie does not wish to correct it. 

Here then is a position which "goes 
a whole bar's length " beyond the res- 



ervation to the supreme court of the 
(piestion what has become of slavery in 
the progress of the war. Speaking in 
a paper addressed to every man on earth 
who can read English and has any con- 
cern in knowing his views, and dealing 
at the same time with the restoration of 
peace and tlie preservation o*' the integ- 
rity of the Union, Mr. Lincoln makes a 
positive requirement of the abandon- 
ment of slavery as an essential feature 
of any proposition on which he will 
treat, lie. did not mean to " palter in a 
double sense." He meant to be under- 
stood. He has been understood. The 
issue is made up between him and the 
Democratic party, on tliis point. If he 
changes that issue he comes over to us, 
so far as this matter is concerned. For, 
my friends, let it be ob.served that the 
Democratic party, speaking through 
General McClellan, its candidate, while 
it demands the restoration of peace and 
the integrity of the Union, has not made 
the condition of the abandonment of 
slavery esseiitial cither to peace or Un- 
ion. There can be no mistake about 
General McClellan's position anymore 
than about lilr. Lincoln's. We ask, 
says General McClellan, nothing but 
the Union. We, says Mr. Lincoln de- 
mand with the Union the abolition of 
slavery. You of the South, says the 
one, can come into the Union as you 
were before you left. You can come 
into the Union, says the other, but you 
must abandon slavery before your prop- 
osition to return can be considered. 

Now let us inquire calmly, which of 
these courses of action is likely to give 
peace to this country ; present and last- 
ing peace. For the attainment of Mr. 
Lmcoln's object, it is but rational to 
suppose that absolute and complete sub- 
jugation of the white race is essential. 
It IS not within the limits of probabil- 
ity, that the people of the Southern 
States will consent to abolish slavery at 
our dictation, until the white race there 
IS so reduced that its consent will be 
practically unimportant, and will there- 
lore cease to be necessary. The conse- 
quence will ba that you will have on 
your hands, for government, a country 



as large as Europe, in which the whites 
will be unwilling, if they are able, and 
unable if they are willing, to cooperate 
in carrying on civil government. You 
miist govern the country by the sword 
until you can introduce a new white 
population, and even then you must 
constantly interfere to settle the ques- 
tion as to which race is to be the pre- 
dominant one.. The result mus't be sub- 
stantially a state of war for generations, 
or a reduction of vast portions of our 
country to a condition resembling that 
of other countries in which African 
slavery has been iniprovidently and 
summarily abolished. That we could 
make such a country pay the cost of 
governing it, no rational being can sup- 
pose ; and that we ourselves can pay 
the taxes requisite, is just as far from 
being a rational conjecture. 

Mr. Lincoln, I think, before he com- 
mitted himself to such a course, should 
have considered where he was carry- 
ing the public credit of the United 
States. The financial scheme on which 
his administration has been managed 
has made the property of every man 
in tliis country, even that of the de- 
positors in our savings banks, depend- 
ent for its value upon the safety and 
redemption of the public debt. If this 
war is to be conducted for the object 
propounded by Mr. Lincoln, that debt 
is absolutely illimitable, and must con- 
sequently become worthless, without 
any distinct act or acts of repudiation. 
If, on the other hand, we can have by 
a change of administration, a definite 
and constitiitional end before us — if 
peace and reunion on the basis of the 
Constitution cfin be secured — the Dem- 
ocratic administration can address it- 
self to the financial measures neces- 
sary to protect the public credit, by 
husbanding its resources, and by a 
vigorous application of economy to 
the pu1)lic expenditures. That it will 
do so is morally certain, for no politi- 
cal party can, under any conceivable 
circumstances, assume the awful re- 
sponsibility of ruining a nation and 
all its people by a voluntary repudi- 
ation. 



If there is one thing of which the 
Democratic party has a right to Ijoast, 
it is its management of the national 
credit. That credit has never been in- 
jured in Democratic hands, and for my- 
self I do not believe that it ever will be, 
while the continued existence of the 
Union shall enable us to have any pub- 
lic credit all. But you can destroy the 
national credit by the same kind of 
process by which you can destroy the 
Union, and that is, by embarking in 
projects for which the Constitution af- 
fords you no warrant, and which open 
expenditures, compared to Avhich all 
the present cost of this wasteful and 
extravagant war are as the drop 
which you can suspend from your 
finger to the illimitable ocean. 

in pvery possible light in which it 
can be viewed, I deprecate this require- 
ment which Mr. Lincoln has made a 
joint condition with the restoration of 
peace. It strikes at the principle which 
lies at the basis of the whole Union, and 
which denies to the federal power, as the 
representative of even a majority of the 
people of the United States, the right 
to dictate local laws and institutions. 
There are other communities besides 
those which hold slaves, that are jeal- 
ous of their rights of local self-govern- 
ment. And, therefore, thankful as I 
should be if slavery could be abolished 
by the consent of those whose affair it 
is, and who can alone deal with the ne- 
gro wisely and beneficially for him and 
themselves, I am unwilling to purchase 
its abolition by putting at hazard that 
important principle of local self-govern- 
ment. I do not wish to see wliat re- 
mains of the Union subjected to any 
further strains. I frankly confess my 
fears of the effect of such consolidation, 
and just as frankly I avow my belief 
that its effect on the stability of the 
Union will be most pernicious. We are 
a people more singularly situated than 
any other people have ever been, who 
have reached a commanding height of 
national greatness with republican 
forms of government. By a most hap- 
py thought, our fathers devised a means 
of constituting a nation out of separate 



10 



republics, by uniting tbcir inhabitants 
for certain purposes of government, 
leaving them for all other purposes in- 
dependont of each other. What front 
against tiie outer world this principle of 
Union has enabled us to present, I need 
not remind you. But have you ever 
retlectcil ujmmi what it is that preserves 
constitutional liberty, in our internal 
condition ; what it is that stands as a 
barrier against the mere physical force 
of this mition, and protects the rights 
of minorities and sections from being 
crushed beneath the same power that 
can make itself so formidable to the ex- 
ternal world 'i Beyond all question, it' 
is the States, with their separate politi- 
cal rights, their local institutions, their 
admitted control over their own domes- 
tic affairs. Break down these barriers, 
and one of two conseqiiences must inev- 
itably ensue ; we shall cither resolve 
ourselves into a completely consolidat- 
ed nation, which must of necessity take 
the form and wield the powers of a des- 
potism, or we shall take refuge against 
that destruction of our civil liberties, 
in the formation of sectional confeder- 
acies. 

Now, whether this result is, or is not 
to come about, depends in my opinion, 
upon the clearness with which the peo- 
ple of the United States shall see, and 
the lirnmess with which they shall act 
ui)on, the requirements of the prob- 
lem of the restoration of the Union 
between the North and the South. 
If, disregarding the principles of the 
Constitution, and e.Kereishig the powers 
of military conquerors, we demand as 
conditions of jteace things inconsistent 
with the acknowledged basis of the 
Union, wt! shall, if we succeed in ex- 
torting th()S(; conditions, overthrow the 
principle that makes Republican insti- 
tutions possilile in so great a country ; 
and then, to avert the fmallossof such 
institutions, wc shall in turn destroy 
the principle tiiat gives us nationality, 
and disa|)j)ear from otir position among 
the leading jtowers of the world. The 
intrigues tliat have I^een and will bo set 
on foot, by foreign inliuences, to hasten 



this catastrophe, you can appreciate as 
well as I can describe them. If, on the 
other hand, we are wise enough to per- 
ceive and follow the safer path, we have 
a most powerful lever with which to 
work, in that principle of human nOr 
turc which the creator of all has im- 
planted in all, and which opens or shuts 
the reason of mankind according as 
pride is wounded or is saved. I know 
liow much the sectional passions have 
been aroused. I know that the people 
of the North must rise to a great lieight 
of magnanimity. But after all, when, 
our. own interest.dictates the very thing 
that magnanimity demands, does it re- 
quire a very great moral cifortto reach 
that temper of mind, which will enable 
us to see how we can relieve the pride 
of an adversary and convert luui into a 
friend. This is often the only needful 
stroke inhuman affairs, and it is a pro- 
cess of wonderful simplicity and effica- 
cy even in the most imbittercd contro- 
versies. 

There can be no question, as it seems 
to me, that this administration df Mr. 
Lincoln stands to-day as a barrier 
against the reunion of the South and 
the North. Believing this to be true, 
I have, as a citizen of the United 
States, a duty to perform in endeavor- 
ing to effect a change. I am bound 
not to yield to Mr. Lincgln's personal 
demand for reelection, when I am con- 
vinced that he has made his removal 
from office necessary. That he him- 
himself has made this so, is but too 
apparent from, the exaction which he 
has coupled with the restoration of 
peace. 

Here, then, is exactly, where we of 
the Democratic party stand. AVe pro- 
pose no compromise whatever of the 
authority of the federal government. 
Our candidate has made this absolute- 
ly plain. But wo do not admit that 
Mr. Lincoln has any claim to be for 
four years longer identified in person, 
with the authority of the goveriuiient, 
when we believe that we could have 
peace if that authority were lodged in 
the hands of a man who will not make 



11 



the condition of peace which Mr. Lin- 
cohi exacts. We wish to be rid of that 
condition which we believ^e enlists tlie 
pride of the Sontli against tlie autlior- 
ity of the government, and by reliev- 
ing that pride to save that antliority. 

This is the simple truth of our posi- 
tion, reduced to an exact issue. But 
the monstrous claim has been put for- 
ward, that Mr. Lincoln, constitution- 
ally elected in 1860, was entitled to 
rule over the whole United States ; and 
that, as the secession of the Southern 
States has prevented his so ruling for 
the first term, it will in some way der- 
ogate from the just authority of the 
government if Mr. Lincoln is not 
elected for the second term. I wish to 
have a word or two to say on this 
claim, to my Republican friends, — to 
my old Whig- friends, — whose votes 
assisted to put into office the author 
of the rescript " to whom it may con- 
cern." I ask you to analyze this 
strange doctrine, — what there is of it, 
— and to put it home to your con- 
sciences and your intelligence. You 
and I once belonged to the same polit- 
ical organization, the noble old Whig 
party of the Union. Yoic thought 
that the Republican party could be 
put into power without endangering 
the political institutions of this coun- 
try. / thought otherwise ; and so we 
separated. But wherever we went, we 
could not unlearn the teachings of the 
great masters of our political faith. In 
that school in which we were trained 
in long years of political success or 
political adversity, if we learned any- 
thing which it became us as American 
citizens to know, we learned that the 
elective franchise is to be used, not 
for the benefit of presidents or secreta- 
ries, but for the welfare of our coun- 
try ; and that, when an incumbent of 
office represents a policy injurious to 
the country, he is to be sacrificed, and 
the office is to be saved, that it may 
answer the ends of its creation. So 
plain is this principle of political eth- 
ics that it astonishes me to hear any 
man who ever bore the name of 
" Whig " advance a fictitious identity 



between the incumbent and the office, 
when the question is on the policy 
which that incumbent pursues. 

Why the very name which wo wore 
so long and with so much glory, and 
which goes back to an era of the 
grandest memory, puts to shamo this 
slavish doctrine. The English Wliigs 
of 1688 broke the succession to the 
Britisli throne, because the continu- 
ance of the incumbent was incompati- 
ble with the public welfare, and made 
him and his posterity wanderers on the 
face of the earth until their wliole line 
was extinct. And arc we, tho Ameri- 
can AVhigs of the nineteenth century, 
to act upon a doctrine that would have 
kept the Stuarts on the tiirone, be- 
cause, forsooth, the law gave them a 
right 10 expect to reign indefinitely? 
The Whig doctrine was that the law 
gave them a right to reign so long as 
they were fit to reign. I do not mean 
to admit that our American franchise 
is to be exercised on any lower princi- 
ple, especially when its sole effect on 
the incumbent will be to retire him to 
private liie, to live like tlie rest of us 
under the protection of the Constitu- 
tion and the laws. 

Consider, for one moment, wliere this 
doctrine, which has been advanced for 
Mr. Lincoln, inevitably leads you. 
You yield to this pretension of a per- 
sonal claim to reelection, because 
there lias been a rebellion against the 
authority which, for the time, resided 
in his person, and you drop your bal- 
lot into the box in his favor, when that 
ballot, deposited for any other man, 
just as effectually asserts and protects 
the authority of the office. You thus 
debar yourself by a fiction from all 
opposition to any official acts or meas- 
ures of Mr. Lincoln's administration, 
and your vote counts in the grand to- 
tal of sanction which the result, if it 
is in his favor, will afford to his entire 
course. You thus forego all your 
opinions, whatever they may be, on the 
financial scheme which has giveii us an 
inconvertible paper-currency, and un- 
settled all the legal and moral basis of 
all peconiaiy relations ; on the violent 



12 



aspumpflons of an executive authority 
to ^;eize ami imprison citizens without 
process of law, and in places where 
no military operations exist; on the 
supj)ression of the freedom of speech 
and of the press ; on the interference 
of military power with the rights of 
the hallot; on whatever act or princi- 
ple, or policy, of this administration 
ought to he passed in review by Amer- 
ican citizens, through the only lawful 
and peaceable means by which such 
wnings can be corrected. You will 
never have anotlier opportunity to ex- 
press your opinions upon these meas- 
ures than the one that is now before 
you ; for if Mr. Lincoln is reelected, 
the sanction of the American people 
will have l)cen deliberately placed upon 
his official acts, and tiie Constitution 
will h:ive received at the hands of the 
people tlieir authoritative support for^ 
all the constructions and interpreta- 
tions which he and his followers and 
his luinisters have undertaken to affix 
to it. These consequences will mani- 
festly follow, if you adopt and act 
upon the claim for reelection that is 
put forward for Mr. Lincoln on the 
groimd of his personal identification 
with the authority of the office. 

All otlun- claims that can be ad- 
vanced for him are, I admit, questions 
of public policy, and are tjiorefore fit 
to be considered. They resolve them- 
selves into the single question of his 
capacity to restore tiio Union. On 
this question, it seems to me there 
can l)i» but one judgment passed by 
intclli'^nMit men. lie' and his support- 
ers put themselves upon this issue, 
namely: They ^-egard no union as of 
any value, which is to embrace any 
slave-holding States. They must there- 
fore either force the Southern States, 
l»y war, to extinguish slavery, or, fail- 
ing in that, they must make a country 
which will exclude all slave-holding 
communities. A distinguished Massji- 
chusotts senator (Mr. Sumner) has 
recently expressed the attitude of Mr. 
Lincoln very forcibly, in these words : 

Tlic Prcsirlont wa-i clo.irlv rieht whon. m a. 
recent letter, he declared that he abou ldaccc ^pw. 



no term? of peace, which did not befjin with the 
ab.UKloninent of slavery. ("Good," and cheers.) 
Tlie Union cannot live with slavery. Nofliing 
can be clearer than this. If slavery dies the 
Union lives; if slavery lives the Union dies. 

Mr. Greeley, too, is equally explicit ; 
for, standing at the head of the Lincoln 
electoral ticket in the State of New 
York, he declares 

There is but one obstacle to the American 
Union to-day, and that is slavery ; there is but 
one peril to the American Union, and that is 
slavery. We have resolved to put down slav- 
ery and restore the Union. (Cheers.) On that 
platform we slaud. 

Tlius the conditions of mortality for 
the Union appear to be fixed. Still 
let us hope that before the final doom is 
pronounced, the people of this country 
may have a voice to Titter. But it 
must be uttered now or never. When 
Mr. Lincoln has been reelected, the fiai 
will have gone forth. He will never 
be able to retrace his steps ; he will 
never disenthral himself from the con- 
trol of those who have pushed him on 
to the point where he must make the 
success or failure of his arms turn 
upon his power to force the abolition 
of slavery. The motto of his next 
administration has been composed. 
" If slavery dies, the Union lives ; if 
slavery lives, the Union dies." And 
as all is to be cast upon this single die, 
— as all our hopes of rebuilding the 
Union of our fathers are to depend 
upon this one issue, and as that issue 
involves a preordained consequence 
and a declared purpose, it is written 
so that he who runs may read, that 
the independence of the Southern Con- 
federacy is to be yielded, if we cannot 
by arms extort the abandonment of 
slavery. What hope or expectation 
the supporters of Mr. Lincoln can 
have of the holding together of the 
West and East after such a result has 
been reached, I am unable to conceive. 
For myself, so long as there remains 
any Constitution of the United States 
to cling to — that instrument to which 
I have many times sworn fealty — I 
shall remember and keep my vows. I 
am a citizen of the United States, 
bound to the Constitution of my conn- 



try wliile it lives. But I cannot shut 
ray eyes to the manifest future. I be- 
lieve that the Constitution will not live 
under the experiment of a Northern 
United States ; and with that Consti- 
tution goes all hope of Republican self- 
goverjjment for this country. 

There are undoubtedly among those 
who have hitherto acted with the Re- 
publican party, many who are now 
disposed to pause and reflect. I im- 
plore them to consider whither we are 
tending. In former years,, my voice 
with the voices of others, was ralis&d 
against your organization, your policy, 
and your candidates, and fell unheed- 
ed. Let all that pass away. I ask no 
credit to myself or to others for any 
predictions we may have uttered. I 
shall ask none hereafter in any event. 
I only beseech you noio, now, in the 
acciipted present, in the day of salva- 
tion, ere the present has become the 
future, and we are all alike involved 
in what that future is to bring — to 
give to your country your calmest 
thoughts and your utmost wisdom. 
Give heed to the counsels of one who 
has perilled life and reputation on the 
field of battle in defence of your Union, 
and wlio now tells you how it may stUl 
be saved, in thoughts and accents that 
must have struck a resounding cliord 
in your liearts. tie has never asked 
for your suffrages ; he wants no place, 
or power, or dignity. His character 
seems to have formed itself into one 
of great strength and moral beauty, 
by the operation of events upon a pure 
and patriotic nature. Tlie love of 
country, iniprcssed upon him when 
you, oh! city of Philadelphia, gave 
him in his boyhood to the institution 
which received him for the Union and 
trained him to revere its flag — the 
love of country has been his ruling 
principle, next to the , fear of God. 
But mark how that love of coijntry 
has been tempered and enlarged by 
the great transactions in which he has 
borne his part. No narrow view of 
the exigencies of the times has cramp- 
ed his intellect, no personal wrongs 
have soured him, no injustice has driv- 



en him from his own equipoise, no 
temptation has led him into the devi- 
ous ways of the demagogue, no sophis- 
tries of his own or of others' coinage 
have distorted his perceptions of the 
true principles of our government. He 
stands to-day in the vigor of life, in 
military skill, in solidity of character, 
in varied accomplishments, in wise 
and sound intellectual habits, and in 
firmness of principle, the foremost man 
of his generation in this country ; and 
whatever may be the result of this 
pending and momentoiis canvass, his 
importance to the future welfare of 
our America will be more and more 
acknowledged, as such virtues and 
such capacities become more and more 
essential to the safety and defence of 
social order under republican institu- 
tions and laws. 

As you have done me the honor to 
ask for my opinions on the issues in- 
volved in the approaching election, I 
close with a recapitulation of what I 
have said. I believe 

First. That this war must be brought 
speedily to a close, or this country and 
its inhabitants will be financially ruin- 
ed. It is impossible noiv, to do more 
than pay the interest on the accrued 
debt, if any provision whatever is to 
be made for a sinking fund to meet 
the principal. 

Second. That the Lincoln policy 
of war for the extinction of slavery is 
a policy for an illimitable debt, because 
it is a 'policy for a perpetual standing 
army of vast proportions ; and if adopt- 
ed, that it must render our public ob- 
ligations and securities worthless, en- 
tail pecuniary ruin alike upon govern- 
ment and people, and overthrow the 
Constitution. 

Third. That the McClellan policy 
of receiving the Southern States back 
to their places in the Union as tliey 
were before they left it, is the only 
policy that affords the slightest pros- 
pect of peace and reunion, with the 
Constitution preserved, our nationality 
saved, and the public credit rescued 
from destruction. 



u 



HElSrilY CL^Y. 



EXTRACT FROSr A SPEECH OF THE IIOX. HKXKY CLAY, IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED 
STATES, ON THE SUBJECT OF ABOLITION rETITIONS, FEBRUARY 7, 1839. 



"Sir, — I am not in the habit of 
speMkiiiu: li.L'-htly of the possibility of dis- 
solviiii,' this )i.i|.)iy Union. The Senate 
knows that I liave deprecateil allusions, 
on ordiniiry occasions, to that direful 
event. The eouiitry will testify, that, if 
there be anything in the history of my 
public career worthy of recollection, it is 
the truth and sincerity of my ardent de- 
votirin to its lasting preservation. But 
we should be fiilse in our allegiance to it 
if we did not discritninate between the 
imaginary and the real dangers by Avhich 
it may be assisted. Abolitit>n sliould no 
longer l)e regarded as an imaginary dan- 
ger. The Abolitionists, let me suppose, 
succeed in their present aims of unitin<T 
the inhabitants of the Free States as one 
man, against the inhabitants of the Slave 
States. Union on the one side will be- 
get union on the other. And this process 
of reciprocal consolidation will be at- 
ten»led with all the violent prejudices, 
imbittered passions, and implacable ani- 
mosities which ever degraded or de- 
forme<l human nature. A virtual disso- 
lution of the Union will have already 
taken place, whilst the form of its exist- 
ence remains. The most valuable ele- 
ment of union, mutnal kindness, the feel- 
ings of sympathy, the fraternal bonds, 
which now happily unite us, will have 
been extinguiMied forever. One section 
will stand in mcnacini: and hostile array 
against the other. ^The collisio.i of 
opinion will be quickly followed by 
the clash of arms. I will' not attempt to 
describe scenes which now lie happily 
coneeah'd from our view. Abolitionist,s 
themselves would shrink back in dismay 
and horror .at the contemplation of des- 
olated fields, conflagrated cities, mur- 
dered inhabitants, and the overthrow of 
the fiirest fabric of human government 
that ever roso to animate the hoj.es of 
civilized man. Nor should these Aboli- 
tionists flatter themselves, that, if they 
can succeed in their object of uniting 
the Free States, they will enter the coii- 
test with a numerical superiority that 
must insure victory. All history and 
experience proves the hazard and "uncer- 



tainty of war; and we are admpnished 
by lioly Writ, "that the race is not to 
the swift, nor the battle to the strong." 
But if they were to conquer, whom 
would they conquer? A foreign foe? 
one that had invaded our sho)-es, in- 
sulted our flag, and laid our country- 
waste? No, sir; no, sir. It would be 
a contest without laurels, without dory, 
— a self, a suicidal conquest, — a"^ con- 
quest of brothers over brothers, — 
achieved by one over a'nother portion 
of the descendants of common ancestors, 
who, nobly pledging their lives, their 
fortunes, and their sacred honor, had 
fought and bled, side by side, in many a 
hard battle on land and ocean, severed 
our country from the British crown, and 
established our national independence. 

The inhabitants of the Slave States 
are sometimes accused by their Northern 
l)rethren with displaying too much rash- 
ness and sensibility to the operations 
and proceedings of Abolitionists. But, 
before they can be rightly judged, thefe 
should be a reversal of conditions. Let 
me suppose that the people of the Slav© 
States were to form societies, subsidize 
]»resses, make large pecuniary contribu- 
tions, send forth numerous missionaries 
throughout all their own borders, and 
enter into machinations to burn the beau- 
tiful capitals, destroy the productive 
manufactories, and sink into the ocean 
the gallant ships of the Northern States. 
U ould these incendiary proceedings be 
regarded as neigh borfy, and fritmdly 
an<l consistent with the fraternal senti- 
ments which should ever be cherished 
by one portion of the Union towards 
another? Would they excite no emo- 
tion, occasion no manifestations of dis- 
satisfaction, nor lead to any acts of re- 
taliat..ry violence? But the supposed 
case l.-.lls far short of the actual one, in 
a nmst essential circumstance In no 
eont.ngency could these capitals, manu- 
factories, and ships rise in rebellion and 
massacre inhabitants of the Northern 
otHte«. 

"I am, Mr. President, no friend of 
slavery. I he Searcher of all hearts 



15 



knows that every pulsation of mine beats 
high and strong in the cause of civil 
liberty. Whenever it is safe and practi- 
cable I desire to see every portion of the 
human family in the enjoyment of it. 
But I prefer the liberty of my own 
country to that of any other people ; 
and the liberty of my own race to that 
of any other race. The liberty of the 
descendants of Africa in the United 
States is incompatible with the safety 
and liberty of the European descend- 



ants. Their slavery forms an exception 
— an exception resulting from a stern 
and inexorable necessity — to the gen- 
eral liberty in the United States. "We 
did not originate, nor are we i-esponsible 
for, this necessity. Tlieir liberty, if it 
were possible, could only be established 
by violating the incontestable powers of 
the States, and subverting the Unior.. 
And beneath the ruins of the Union 
would be buried, sooner or later, the 
liberty of both races." 



GENERAL McCLELLAN'S LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE. 



Orange, New Jersey, ) 
September 8, 1864. J 

Gentlemen : I have the honor to ac- 
knowledge the receipt of your letter in- 
forming me of my nomination by the 
Democratic National Convention, recently 
assembled at Chicago, as their candidate 
at the next election for President of the 
United States. 

It is unnecessary for me to say to you 
th3.t this nomination comes to me unsought. 

I am happy to know that when the nom- 
ination was made the record of my public 
life was kept in view. 

The effect of long and varied service in 
the ai'my during war and peace, has been 
to strengthen and make indelible in my 
mind and heart the love and reverence for 
the Union, Constitution, laws, and flag of 
our country, impressed upon me in early 
youth. 

These feelings have thus far guided the 
course of my life, and must continue to do 
so to its end. 

The existence of more than one govern- 
ment over the region which- once owned 
our flag is incompatible with the peace, the 
power, and the happiness of the people. 

The preservation of our Union was the 
sole avowed object for which the war was 
commenced. It should have been con- 
ducted for that object only, and in accord- 
ance with those principles which I took 
occasion to declare when in active service. 

Thus conducted, the work of reconcilia- 
tion would have been easy, and we might 
have reaped the benefits of our many vic- 
tories on land and sea. 



The Union was originally formed by the 
exercise of a spirit of conciliation and com- 
promise. To restoi'e and preserve it, the 
same spirit must prevail in our councils, 
and in the hearts of the people. 

The reestablishment of the Union in all 
its integrity is, and must continue to he, 
the indispensable condition in any settle- 
ment. So soon as it is clear, or even prob- 
able, that our present adversaries are ready 
for peace, upon the basis of the Union, we 
should exhaust all the resources of states- 
manship practised by civilized nations, and 
taught by the traditions of the American 
people, consistent with the honor and in- 
terests of the country, to secure such peace, 
reestablish the Union, and guarantee for 
the future the constitutional rights of every 
State. The Union is the one condition of 
peace — we_ask no more. 

Let me add what, I doubt not was, al- 
though unexpressed, the sentiment of the 
Convention, as it is of the people they rep- 
resent, that when any one State is willing 
to return to the Union, it should be re- 
ceived at once, with a full guarantee of 
all its constitutional rights. 

If a frank, earnest, and persistent effort 
to obtain those objects should fail, the re- 
sponsibility for idterior consequences will 
fall upon those who remain in arms against 
the Union. But the Union must be pre- 
served at all hazards. 

I could not look in the face of my gal- 
lant comrades of the army and navy, who 
have survived so many bloody battles, and 
tell them that their labors and the sacrifice 
of so many of our slain and wounded breth- 



IC 



ren had been in vain ; that wc had aban- 
doned that Union for which we have so 
often periled our lives. 

A vast majority of our people, whether 
in the army and navy or at home, would, 
as 1 would, hail with unbounded joy the 
permanent restoration of peace, on the basis 
of the Union under the Constitution, with- 
out the effusion of another drop of blood. 
But no peace can be permanent without 

Union. J . 

As to the other subjects presented in 
the resolutions of the Convention, I need 
only say that I should seek, in the Consti- 
tution of the United States and the laws 
framed in accordance therewith, the rule 
of my duty, and the limitations of execu- 
tive power ; endeavor to restore economy 
in public expenditure, reestablish the su- 
premacy of law, and, by the operation ot a 
more vigorous nationality, resume our com- 
manding position among the nations of the 

The condition of our finances, the de- 
preciation of the paper money, and the 
burdens thereby imposed on labor and cap- 
ital, show the necessity of a return to a 



sound financial system ; while che rights 
of citizens, and the rights of States and 
the binding authority of law over 1 resi- 
dent, army, and people, are subjects ol not 
less vital importance in war than lu peace 

Believing that the views here expressed 
are those of the Convention and the people 
you represent, I accept the nomination. 

I realize the weight of the responsibility 
to be borne should the people ratify your 

choice. , T „„« 

Conscious of my own weakness, 1 can 
only seek fervently the guidance ot the 
Kuler of the universe, and, relying -on 
Uis all-powerful aid, do my best to re- 
store union and peace to a suffering people, 
and to establish and guard their liberties 
and rights, 

I am, gentlemen, 

very respectfully, 

your obedient servant, 

Geo. B. McClellan. 

Hon. HoKATio Seymour, 

arid others, CommtUee. 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

:iiii:iriii'iii!ril'il''r!ll'll'ftif'lf 



REPUBLICAN PLATFOl 012 027 628 1 t 



EiBCDTivE Mansion, ,.,„„,} 

Washington, July 18, 1S64. ) 

To WUOM IT MAY CONCERN : 

Any proposition which embraces the 
restoration of peace, the integrity of the 
whole Union, and the abandonment of sla- 
vert/, and which comes hif and with an 
authority that can control the armies now 



at war against the United States, ^l•^Il be 
received and conddered by the Executive 
Government of the United States, and will 
be met by liberal terms on other substan- 
tial and collateral points, and the bearer 
or bearers thereof shall have safe conduct 

both ways. 

Abraham Lincoln. 



WATCHWORDS FOR PATRIOTS. 

Mottoes for the Campaign, selected from aeneral McOlellan's Writings. 

If it is not deemed best to intrust me with the command even of my own anny, I .imply ask 
to be permitted to share their fate on the field of battle. - Despatch to General Ilallcck, August 

^^W nu"r.uin- the nolltioal mnr.e T have always advised, it is possible to bring about a permanent 

Hv P'.'^'"'"? "-"Y" ■'■'' ro-....ion bv which the rights of both sections shall he preserved, 

iSr '^hil i:;:thpaHU;;(:a!ri;r:;ve their ..^^re^^l, ^bilo tUey respect each other. - Ger. 

'"/'n;';?:ltt'lv'pCu';ul to God that my last campaign was crowned with a victory which 
1 am (Kvouuv f,i.i . iinder"ono. — General McCleltan's llcporl. 

J'Zt ''^.SJ^X^ ua^S oii; orlw loo., of l,,o whole Urn,.,-. - General McCleU 
lans West Point Uralion. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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HoUinger 

pH8.5 

Mill Run F3-1 955 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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Hollinger 

pH8.5 

Mill Run F3-1955 



